Doke done with donks of Deauville

I played the last two side events, a fast structured 550 event, and a "turbo" 330. JP joked that if I liked the turbo I should try some of his faster pub games at home, and it's fair to say that the structure made most pub crapshoots look like the main event of the World Series by comparison. 15 minute levels, which given how long your average Fronk takes to make a decision, meant 2 hands a level at times (3 if they were all calling clock on each other).

Anyway, no joy in either for me. In both I just withered into the push/fold stage, rallied a bit, before ultimately petering out. A lot of the Fronks don't really understand the whole push/fold nature of big blind play, which led to some amusing hands. My second last hand of the turbo, I shoved my 5 big blinds over 5 limpers and to my astonishment they all folded. The last guy showed KJ before he folded getting 2 to 1 on the call. I was tempted to show him my K2s but decided against it in the interests of international diplomacy. My final hand in Deauville had me shoving 8's for 8 big blinds over a limper, the big blind tanking it for about 2 levels before calling (leaving himself 2 bigs behind), and then tanking it for another level or so before making a crying call when the original limper reshipped. I think he seriously considered folding his pocket sixes getting 16 to 1 on the call.

Good fun though, and it was good to see that the French adhere to the international law that says that the biggest donkeys talk the biggest game at the table and berate the people they think are the fish the loudest. One guy at my table playing every hand (really badly) and doing donkey stuff like calling with Q2s out of position for big chunks of his stack went on monkey tilt every time he actually had a good hand and the likes of KJ sucked out on him.

Grinded online for a while and came close to another EPT Berlin ticket in the 3x, going out in 7th in the end for €500 consolation prize. Then we decided to go to eat and found a nice quiet pizzeria down a side street. JP and Toby appeared a bit later. Fair play to both of them for their work here: Toby was impressive as ever TDing and JP seemed to have a meteoric rise from dealing in his first EPT to TDing the main event in Thomas Kremser's absence. No better man. All the Irish based dealers working here were a cut above the locals (most of whom were useless beyond belief): it really illustrates how lucky we are in Ireland as far as competent TDs and dealers go.

Overall my second ever EPT was a positive experience for me. While you always hope this will be the one time you get a life changing result, another side event cash is not to be sniffed at either. The downsides were the rather brash and sometimes downright unfair local player culture (sufficeth to say that while etiquette may be a French word it doesn't seem to be in the vocabulary of the average French poker player), and the very high effective regs fees of the event. 4% of all prizepools here are withheld, so an event that is advertised as 500 plus 50 reg (10%) is actually 480 plus 70 (15%).

Thanks to everyone who sent messages of support either here, by email, text, Twitter or Facebook. It's always a huge boost to know your friends back home are genuinely rooting for you.

Next up for me in the Bruce colours is the Fitz End of Month on Thursday, and (if I can find a hotel that doesn't cost twice as much as the tournament entry) the Clonmel festival. Tonight I'll be playing my first three online tourneys sponsored by Bruce on Bruce:

19.30 $10K Gtd Rebuy/Addon
18:30 Daily $10K guaranteed
20:30 HS Daily: $2500 Gtd

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